Annabelle Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by HazardlyAnne
Summary: Annabelle Potter was a perfectly normal...wait, scratch that...Annabelle Potter was a WITCH! Rated M for future content.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Firstly, **I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING**! Secondly, This Chapter is pretty much word for word, chapter two is when all the real fireworks begin.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

**The Girl Who Lived**

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><p>Number Four, Privet Drive was the last place you would expect anything exciting or unusual to happen. Mostly, this was because of the fact that the occupants simply didn't hold with all that nonsense, but the other reason was that they simply had no real reason for anything strange to happen at all.<p>

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills for the big industrial sorts. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors.

The Dursley's had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.

As it was, when Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday that our story starts, there was nothing to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. The happy couple proceeded as usual, Mr. Dursley walking out the door armed with his most boring tie and his gossipy wife leering across the fence at the neighbor's lawn. Neither one noticed the large, tawny owl flutter by, not that they had any reason to suspect an owl in the first place. So Mr. Dursley backed out of the drive without further ado, whistling a cheery tune as he started off for another long day of selling drill bits.

It didn't take long, however, for the perfectly normal Mr. Dursley to notice something not quite right about his cheerful Tuesday morning. In fact, the chipper tune he had whistled turned to a choking sputter as he pulled to the corner and spotted the strangest sight he had ever seen in his incredibly dull life. A cat that was quite clearly reading a map.

"What in the bloody hell? Impossible. I must be seeing things."

And with a quick shake of his head he sped off, absolutely refusing to look back at the extraordinary tabby cat now making its way down the sidewalk of Little Whinging. Unfortunately for Mr. Dursley, his day was only bound to get a little stranger the further he proceeded. On the edge of town, any thought of his daily orders were driven out of his mind by something else.

As he sat in the morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. On any other day, Mr. Dursley might have put it off as some silly stunt, or even a show to raise funds for some oddball cause he hadn't heard of, but today it sent a wave of unease through his rather round belly.

"Just your imagination Dursley, get it together now. We don't buy into that lot of rubbish." Muttering darkly to no one in particular, Mr. Dursley firmly averted his gaze to the car ahead of him and forced himself to think about something, _anything_, but the oddly dressed people. A few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot with his mind still fixed on cloaks and cats.

Perhaps it was this reason that Mr. Dursley sat facing the window this day. Usually, he sat with his back facing his office on the ninth floor. If he had, he might have not noticed the owls swooping past in broad daylight earning open mouthed stares and pointed fingers from the passerby's down below. Yet he did see them, and it happened the final straw for poor Mr. Dursley.

"Owls! Bloody owls! Absolute rubbish, I say! First that damned cat, then those- those freaks! Now OWLS? What next?" Mr. Dursley all but ran out of his office, ignoring the shocked looks of his underlings as he stormed towards the exit with his face turning a rather spectacular shade of purple.

It was in this manner, as Mr. Dursley stomped to his car, that Mr. Dursley overheard the topper to his increasingly trying day. "Did you hear? You-Know-Who is dead! Little Annabelle Potter killed the slimy git!" Potter. Mr. Dursley came to a sudden stop, his beady little eyes snapping away from polished shoes to a pair of young men dressed up in cloaks and weird looking robes.

"My mum found out this morning. She was a friend of Lily Potter, you know, it's a shame that her and her husband James died. Think of it, that poor girl growing up all alone." The younger of the two, a boy with a shock of stunning red hair and a spattering of freckles spoke, not even noticing Mr. Dursley going from purple to sheet white in the parking lot.

"I heard about that too, Bill. Dad overheard Dumbledore talking with the Minister about the Potter girl, he thinks Dumbledore is sending her off to _muggles_ of all the people. Some relatives if he heard right." The latter, only a year or two older than the first, spat out with a clear look of distaste.

Whatever else the two strange boys may have said went unheard as Mr. Dursley scrambled into his waiting car and shot off out of the parking lot with a single, horrifying thought spurring his flight. _Potters._

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><p><em>Later that evening….<em>

Outside of Number Four, the strange little tabby cat sat still as a statue with its unblinking eyes fixed intently on the Dursley house. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.

A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appearing so suddenly and silently you would have thought he had simply popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. What the residents of Privet Drive didn't know was that this man was Albus Dumbledore.

Albus didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived on a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."

After a few more moments of rummaging, Albus pulled what seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter from his pocket. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. Twelve more times he clicked, and twelve more lights flickered into darkness until only the lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off towards Number Four where the little tabby cat still glared from its perch on a wall.

"Fancy seeing you here, Minerva."

He turned to look at the cat, but it was suddenly gone. Instead, Dumbledore was smiling at a rather severe looking woman with square spectacles set low on her nose exactly where the pale markings around the cat's eyes had been. She too was wearing a cloak, yet hers was a deep emerald. Her black hair was drawn up into a tight bun, and the look on her face gave the distinct impression that she was ruffled.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked.

"My dear Professor McGonagall, I have never seen a cat sit so stiffly." A faint hint of amusement crinkled the corners of Dumbledore's eyes, earning an instant scowl from the woman.

"You would be stiff if you had been sitting on a brick wall all day." She snapped. Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and continued. "Is it true what they're saying? That last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow…and that Lily and James Potter are-are…that they're…"

Dumbledore bowed his head.

"If that's true, then Annabelle…Surely you can't mean to leave her _here_ of all the places!" McGonagall had jumped to her feet on a soft gasp.

Neither of them seemed to notice the soft yellow glow of lamp flaring to life behind the curtain of Number Four, or the soft creak of the door as Dumbledore sighed. He opened his mouth to speak, oblivious to the thin woman slowly making her way across the postage stamp lawn in her slippers.

"Where is she?" Mrs. Dursley's shrill voice cut through whatever Dumbledore had intended to say. He turned sharply, his twinkling blue eyes widening slightly when he spotted her. He gave her a polite nod that only served to make Mrs. Dursley sour expression worsen. "Petunia, it's a pleasure to see you again." He greeted.

Mrs. Dursley sniffed somewhat rudely and twisted her overly long neck this way and that looking for something that was obviously not there. A low rumbling sound broke the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as all three looked up to the sky – and an enormous motorcycle came thundering out of it to land with a screech in front of them. Mrs. Dursley let out a frightened squeal, but Dumbledore merely smiled at the newcomer.

If the motorcycle was enormous, it was nothing compared to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and easily five times as wide. Long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid all but a pair of shiny, dark eyes and cold reddened nose. The giant of a man had hands the size of trash can lids, and tucked into one was a small, quivering bundle of pastel pink blankets.

And just barely peeking out of said blankets, an even smaller baby girl was just visible, her vibrant green eyes peering curiously up at the sky. Underneath a tuft of red hair still bright with youth, a curiously shaped scar cut jaggedly across the girl's forehead.

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><p><strong>END AN: **I know, it's really rough. Rate and review please!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **We're getting a bit more original now as we work our way into the story. Please review!

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

**The Little Piggy**

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><p>In the nearly ten years it had been since Mrs. Dursley had rescued her niece from a particularly hairy giant of a man, it had become quite normal for the residents of Number Four, Privet Drive to be awakened by a horrendous racket. Whether it be the thunder of footsteps or the sound of girlish giggles, there was <em>always<em> some noise rousting them from bed promptly at seven every morning. So it was on this particular Sunday morn, at precisely seven fifteen, that Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke feeling awfully suspicious of their unusually quiet home. It was so quiet that if not for the dozens of pictures pinned neatly to the wall, no one would have ever suspected that a ten year old girl lived in the house at all.

However, Annabelle Potter did live there, and she was wide awake in the larger of the two upstairs bedrooms with an ear pressed up against the door. Of course Mrs. Dursley never saw the mischievous grin on little Anna's heart shaped face before she trooped down to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, nor did she notice the slight smudge of pink marring the shine of her sink. In fact, no one noticed anything at all until the coffee had been poured and Mrs. Dursley happened to glance out of the kitchen window.

"ANNABELLE ROSE POTTER! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!" Up above, the silly grin Anna Potter wore only grew wider at the sound of Petunia Dursley's shrilly shriek.

"Now!" The screech sent the girl hurrying down the stairs in a whirl of scarlet plaits and pressed skirts the color of spring grass.

Anna came to sliding halt just inside the kitchen where her aunt was waiting, still wearing a bright smile. "You called, Aunt Petunia?" She ignored the slight narrowing of her aunt's eyes and simply waited until the woman pointed a bony finger stiffly towards the window. She, of course, already knew what was outside seeing as she had spent quite an awful lot of time in the still dark hours doing it in the first place. "Is there something wrong with the lawn, Aunt Petunia?" She asked innocently.

"Something wrong with it? It-it-it's _blue_!" Her aunt's voice was steadily reaching octaves Anna hadn't thought humanly possible. For a moment, Anna feigned a look of shock, standing up on her toes to peer out at the lawn that was currently only a shade or two off from the sunny July sky.

"Why, it _is_ blue isn't it?" It took a supreme amount of effort to say the words with a straight face. Her aunt, however, seemed entirely unamused. Her long neck straightened, making it look even longer, and her spine stiffened even more than usual, but whatever tirade was about to begin was stopped short by an equally furious Uncle Vernon.

The short, rather rotund man slammed the front door hard enough to rattle a picture loose off of the wall. "Every lawn, Petunia! Every. Single. Lawn. All up and down the block! The neighbors are having a right laugh! And…_YOU_!" Her uncle had finally rounded the kitchen entrance. He pointed a fat finger in her direction, his face turning a splotchy shade of purple. "You are getting too old to be making rainbows out of the neighborhood. Young ladies don't tromp around the neighborhood looking for trouble like common riff-raff! Looks alone won't catch you a decent husband, I don't even think that boy Simon will stick around much longer at this rate. I'm surprised he's even thought to invite you to his birthday party with this behavior." He snapped.

"I'd rather catch a crocodile than Simon Grunnings." Before her uncle could scold her for her comment, Anna turned on her heel and ran out of the kitchen, absolutely furious with herself for forgetting that today was _that_ day. The day that she had to suffer through an entire weekend afternoon and evening with that horrible boy from school. And no amount of pranks, arguing, or pleading would sway the Dursley's into keeping her home since that boy was the son of a very important man in Mr. Dursley's company.

Perhaps it was the fact that Annabelle was beginning to develop into a "young lady" as the Dursley's were fond of saying, but whatever the reason, they had become incredibly interested in her love life as of late. Unfortunately, it seemed that they had decided that the Grunnings boy would be a perfect match for her, and even worse, _his _parents seemed to think so too. Neither the Dursley's nor the Grunnings' seemed to care about the obvious fact that Annabelle and Simon absolutely loathed each other.

Anna reached the top of the stairs and turned into her bedroom, muttering under her breath the entire way to her bedroom where she slammed the door with enough force to rival Mr. Dursley's entrance. She ignored the sharp reprimand that followed on her heels and flopped onto her bed with dejected sigh. It wasn't long before she rolled onto her back to stare at the powder colored ceiling, her thoughts drifting back to the source of her ever worsening mood.

"I hate him. It's not even fair that I have to go in the first place, he didn't even really invite me. His parents did!" She grumbled. Of course, it didn't matter how much she grumbled, she was still going if Petunia Dursley had anything to say about it. And it was only ten minutes later that the horse faced woman came snapping up the stairs to herd her niece out of bed to get ready for the party.

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><p>In all of the time that Annabelle Potter had lived in Number Four, very little had changed about Privet Drive. Tidy front gardens still dotted the street and the brass numbers on the doors were still polished to a shine; if it weren't for the brilliantly colored lawns of pink, purple, blue, and red, it would have been hard to tell any time had passed at all. It was quite odd watching the residents filter out of their homes that day, so strange that no one who went outside thought to look up at the sky that day. If they had, they may have seen the large, tawny owl swoop down out of the sky to the empty home of Number Four and neatly deposit a thick letter into the mail slot with the rest of the post.<p>

As it was, not even the Dursley's themselves noticed the strange owl as they had already left not an hour before with a sulking Anna in tow. As a matter of fact, they had already arrived at their destination and both the Dursley's and their pouting charge were far too busy to be worried about such nonsense as post delivering owls. Although it was quite safe to say that Annabelle Potter would have gladly taken that oddity over anything to do with the short, pudgy boy that had taken to yanking on her hair by the ends of her plaits. The very same boy that had put her in such a sour mood in the first place.

Simon Grunnings was, by all means, one of the most spoilt rotten boys in all of Surrey. His family owned and operated the company that sold drill bits where Mr. Dursley worked, and he was the sole heir to a very large bit of money. He was used to getting everything he wanted when he wanted it, and being such had grown very large around the middle from the sweets and cakes he ate by the pound. If it wasn't the best, it simply wouldn't do for the Grunnings darling boy, whether it be his tailored outfits he only ever wore once or his top of the line toys he played with for a day before tossing into his spare room to be forgotten. Unfortunately, it was this very attitude that had left Anna on the receiving end of the boy's rotten nature.

You see, Simon Grunnings _did_ fancy Miss Annabelle Potter, very much in fact, but she would have nothing to do with him and told him so in front of the entire schoolyard in their first year together. Ever since the two had been at odds, Simon going out of his way to harass Anna, and Anna bluntly ignoring him which made it all the worse. Luckily today, Simon was too excited about his trip into London to pay her much attention save for the occasional nasty comment or pinch when the adults weren't too close. His parents had been generous enough to give all of the children a bit of pocket money and had sent them off down a shop lined street to buy odds and ends while the adults enjoyed a cup of tea at a small pastry house.

Simon had shot off like a bolt with his friends to squash his upturned nose up against the dusty glass of every shop on the street, leaving Anna alone for the most part to wander about. She moved along slowly, the soles of her polished flats clicking along the pavement in any easy rhythm until she came across a cheerful little ice cream parlor painted gold and red. She nipped inside and spent a good amount of time looking at all of the flavors before deciding on a double scoop of vanilla and strawberry and settling down on a chair next to the street window.

Besides the Grunnings and Simon's snobby friends, there were surprisingly few people out and about that actually seemed to be customers. For the most part, the only people out were the shopkeepers that had were filtering back into their stores for lunch and switching letters on their signs. One rather oddly dressed dealer was wrestling what looked like large, gilded birdcages into the front of what must have been a pet shop of some sort. The peculiar set of deep blue robes the man was wearing seemed to be no help at all as they kept catching on his foot and nearly tripping him every time he hopped up the step to put another cage inside the door.

It took him a good fifteen minutes before the brown haired man was finally struggling to get the last cage up the step. It was nearly as tall he was, and judging by his purpling expression as he tried to lift it, it was probably rather heavy as well. Anna was nearly finished with her ice cream when the man's ridiculous robe snagged on the doorknob and a brown leather pouch fell out of his pocket onto the step behind him. She paused, bright green eyes fixed intently on the man wondering if he had even noticed what had happened.

Yet after several long beats the man shoved the cage into the door with a loud curse and slammed it shut without even glancing at it. Anna quickly pushed away from the little table where she had been sitting and hurried out of the door towards the pet shop. She shot a quick glance at the street to make sure that there were no cars coming and ran across to snatch up the pouch before someone else could steal it and pushed the heavy wooden door to the store open.

"Hello? Sir? You dropped your…umm…coin purse? Are you here?" Anna looked carefully around the shop, squealing in surprise when she turned to find herself nose to beak with a gigantic black owl perched on a brass stand. The owl gave an indignant hoot at the noise, two enormous amber eyes blinking at her in clear irritation. "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Do you know where the shopkeeper is?" She asked somewhat tentatively. The owl stared at her for a moment as if debating her question, and then with a click of its beak it took off and vanished into the recesses of the shop.

And what a strange sort of pet shop it was, not even remotely like the ones she had seen before. The last time she had ever been in a pet store it had been filled with kittens and puppies and fluffy little gerbils and the like, and the only thing close to that here was a row of cats in the corner. Instead of goldfish and button nosed bunnies, this store was filled with owls and brightly colored toads and lizards with two heads. She could have sworn she even saw a case of large black rats playing skip rope with their tails near the old oak counter. One of the glass cases along the nearest wall caught her eye, and before she thought about what she was doing, her curiosity had her wandering up to the edge of the case to take a peek.

At first she didn't see anything but a bunch of twigs and a rock piled on top of warm dirt, but as she was about to turn away a flash of white near a shallow pool of water brought her attention back. She gasped when she spotted it, a pale white snake with a faint rainbow shimmer to its scales when the light caught it. "Oh, you're a beauty aren't you? I've never seen such pretty scales." As if the snake could understand, it slowly opened one brilliant lavender eye and slowly unfolded its coils in such a way that the shimmering intensified tenfold.

Anna gasped, her eyes growing to the size of saucers. "You _are_ beautiful. It's such a shame you have to spend your time in here, you would look even more amazing in the sun I bet you." If a snake could look smug, this one certainly did, lifting its angular head rather high to peer at the girl on the other side of the glass. And then, to her utter shock, the snake winked at her and did the most amazing thing that Anna had ever witnessed. It spoke.

_"You are one I like, little Sspeaker. What iss your name?"_ Anna's jaw nearly hit the floor. A snake that could _talk_? She had never seen one before, at least not up close, so who knew? Maybe all snakes could speak. Either way, her aunt had always said it was rude not to answer a direct question.

"My name is Annabelle, Annabelle Rose Potter. What's yours?" The snake cocked its head to the side, a forked tongue briefly flicking out to taste the air.

_"I do not have a name Sspeaker."_ It hissed.

"Oh, well that's no good, everyone needs a name. Something beautiful like your scales…Oh! I know, how about Isis? That's the name of an Egyptian goddess, she was beautiful too if her paintings are any clue." She was taking a wild guess at the snake's gender, but it didn't seem angry that she had picked a female name. In fact, it seemed rather pleased by the title if anything. Anna's guess was proven right the snake nodded its head in approval.

"Fantastic! Isis, would you mind very much if I picked you up?" Truth be told her fingers had been itching to touch her since she had first spied the glimmer of her scales. Isis stretched upwards towards the open top of her case in answer, sliding right over the edge and dropping gracefully onto her arm. As Isis slid her way up Anna's thin shoulder, a familiar hoot sounded from a nearby shelf.

She tore her eyes away from the fascinating movement of her newfound friend only a start a little in surprise when she realized that not only the enormous owl had returned, but so had its owner. A hot flush crept up her collar, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable being caught handling an animal she didn't own without permission. The shopkeeper's eyebrow inched ever so slowly up towards his hairline, obviously waiting for her to explain herself.

"I…um…I found this…outside…on the step…" She lifted up the leather pouch with the drawstring cord she had picked off of the doorstep. The man's face didn't so much as twitch as he glanced down at the pouch, and then looked back up to stare quite pointedly at the thin scar on her forehead. After what felt like an hour, the man carefully picked the pouch up to be deposited back into his pocket and gave her the strangest look. Anna looked at Isis, feeling rather awkward about the entire situation. "I had better go. Maybe my aunt will bring me back to visit you sometime if you haven't a found a new home yet."

She started to lift the snake off of her shoulder when the blue robed man suddenly snapped back to life. "Oh no, Miss Potter. I do believe that your friend here would much rather go home with you. Think of it as a reward for saving me all that coin just a moment ago. Here, take this. Everything you'll need is inside." He reached into a shelf and pulled down a small, white box wrapped in string and shoved it into her hands. Before she could so much as utter a dumbfounded thank you, he was pushing her towards the door with that odd look still firmly fixed on his face. Before she knew it, he had herded her back outside and was watching her walk towards the tea shop where the Dursley's still waited.

Perhaps it was the shock of the strange events that had just occurred, but for whatever reason, Anna never saw Simon Grunnings hurrying up behind her as she started across the street. All she knew was that one moment she was walking and the next Simon had shoved her hard with his shoulder, throwing her straight into a puddle on the edge of the street. Annabelle sat frozen for a full beat, as Simon and his friends burst into laughter. She took a deep shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, then let out a thunderous roar that would have made Uncle Vernon proud.

"Simon you-you FAT LITTLE PIG!" There was a roaring sensation in her ears that was nearly as deafening as her own shriek, followed by a faint _pop_, and it was then that sound of laughter turned into pig like squeals. And when she opened her eyes, the six boys who had been laughing were squealing in horror, all of them gawping at their brand new sets of bright pink piggy ears and curly little piggy tails.

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><p><strong>END AN: **As you might be able to tell, Annabelle's path to Hogwarts is quite a bit different from Harry's. Tell me what you think of it so far.


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